This week at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, the Petit Palais was filled to capacity for a truly stellar performance inspired by CERN and the cosmos.

As part of CERN’s 60^th anniversary celebration, four saxophonists, a jazz pianist, two satellites and several hundred cosmic rays performed music to showcase the second edition of ‘The Physics of Music and the Music of Physics’.

The Donald Sinta Quartet performed Roger Zare’s classical composition ‘LHC’, inspired by the ATLAS and CMS experiments’ search for the Higgs boson. The performance was complemented by CMS physicist Piotr Traczyk’s video featuring images from the two years leading to the discovery. The saxophone quartet concluded with ‘Z(4430)’, a composition inspired by the April announcement of the LHCb experiment’s discovery of a new 4-quark particle.

The next two acts brought music from the edges of our solar system. Domenico Vicinanza, Arts and Humanities manager at DANTE in Cambridge, UK, presented various compositions created from transposed Higgs boson data. He then took the audience on a voyage to the end of the solar system, with transformation of data from NASA’s Voyager dual missions – two interstellar satellites that have travelled further than any other man-made object – to form a haunting melody.

“It was so nice to see people fascinated with physics and music. Art is a unique and powerful way to speak to the heart and soul of people. When art and science are together, nothing less than magic can happen,” said Vicinanza.

The grand finale featured a duet between jazz pianist Al Blatter and the Cosmic Piano, an instrument developed by particle physicist Arturo Fernandez Tellez. The Piano, built from components prepared for the ALICE experiment, is triggered by cosmic rays. These energetic rays are produced by the collision of high-energy charged particles with the Earth’s upper atmosphere and pass through our bodies all the time. They come from events occurring all over our universe, some of which happened billions of years ago. When a cosmic ray passes through one of four separate detector pads of the Cosmic Piano, it triggers a musical note and a colourful flash of light. The random intervals of the arriving rays combined with Blatter's piano skills made for some fantastic polyrhythmic jazz.

In July 1964, the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) was registered as a non-profit organization in Geneva – its aim to promote molecular biology in Europe. The seeds of the new organization had been sown two years earlier in a meeting at CERN, between then Director-General Victor Weisskopf, and two influential microbiologists – 1962 Nobel laureates John Kendrew and James Watson. With initial funding from the Volkswagen Foundation, the fledging EMBO was able to employ a secretariat, elect members, provide fellowships, and run courses and workshops. Funding from national governments came nearly five years later, with the establishment of the European Molecular Biology Conference (EMBC) with 14 founding member states, which held its first meeting at CERN in February 1969 (See a press release from the time). On the way, representatives from 16 countries (the 13 member states and three observer states of CERN) attended a precursor meeting at CERN in 1967, which recommended that the European governments ensure the continuation and development of EMBO, and that EMBO should pursue studies into what might become a European Molecular Biology Laboratory (See press release).

Today EMBO has more than 1500 members – leading researchers who are elected on scientific merit and currently include 69 Nobel laureates. The organization fulfilled its second founding mandate in 1974 when the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) was established in Heidelberg, Germany. At present, EMBL is supported by 21 member states, two associate member states and one prospective member state. CERN and EMBL are both partners in the EIROFORUM group of European scientific organizations, as well as in major projects such as Helix Nebula, which brings together leading IT providers with CERN, EMBL and ESA to chart a course towards sustainable cloud-computing services for the research communities.

by Juska Pekkanen and Nairit Sur

CMS held a special introductory session for newcomers and young members of the collaboration on 17 and 18 July. Juska Pekkanen (Helsinki Institute of Physics & University of Helsinki, Finland) and Nairit Sur (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India) recount the experience.

Nairit: Being a part of a collaboration like CMS is an unparalleled experience. Once you get over the initial amazement at the enormity of the project and slowly get to know more and more about the nitty-gritty of its working, you cannot help but wonder how exactly this immensely complex system with so many components, each with its own distinctive features, is managed and run in a smooth, coherent manner.

Juska: When I first heard about the CMS induction course at a project meeting back in Helsinki, I thought, “This is a great idea but it’s a pity that there wasn’t one when I started working for CMS as a summer student back in 2011.” Now, after attending the course as a fresh PhD student, I realise that even those of us with some experience with CMS have a lot to gain from such a course. When working with a giant like CMS, a couple of years is not nearly enough to get familiar with the myriad parts of the detector, not to mention the workings of the colossal 4000+-person collaboration. The newcomers’ course helped me a great deal in understanding the big picture.

Nairit: Our spokesperson Tiziano Camporesi set the pace on the first morning of the one-and-a-half-day session with a detailed introduction to CMS. Starting with the history of the collaboration, he described the physics objectives, the magnet system and subdetectors and the measurement of particles, before discussing the future of the detector and collaboration. He also introduced us to the functioning of the LHC, data acquisition and event reconstruction. This was followed by two sessions on tracking and calorimetry in CMS. Both the talks were very informative for a new PhD student like me. I had personal interactions with the speakers after the talks and got valuable inputs.

Juska: I have never seen our subdetectors introduced with such depth and detail, accompanied with plenty of interesting anecdotes and pictures of how things actually look like. Of course, all this info is available in various public sources, but you don’t just go and read this kind of stuff from the 1000+-page technical publications, it needs to be pre-chewed to be somewhat understandable in one go. The flow of information was fierce and pace quite fast so I could not grasp all of it right away, but for that I downloaded the slides from the course’s website for future reference. I’m sure they’ll prove invaluable when I need to describe the experiment in depth in my thesis!

Read the rest of this post at the CMS blog, Cylindrical Onion

Are you passionate about science? Do you like communicating that passion to the general public? Then come along to the 3rd CERN Summer Student Webfest on the weekend of 1-3 August! It's a grassroots initiative by the summer students, open to all CERN staff and users, seeking to spark new ideas that could innovate the future of web-based education about CERN, the LHC and particle physics.

NOTE:  This year, just signing into the Webfest page with your CERN ID automatically registers you for the event.

The CERN Summer Student Webfest is a weekend of online web-based creativity modelled on the "hackfests" that energize many open source communities. You can work with like-minded students and CERN staff to design and build demos of neat applications that encourage the public to learn more about science and, in particular, CERN, the LHC and particle physics. Prizes will be awarded to the best projects, with a Grand Prize winner receiving a trip to the Mozilla Festival in London!

Anyone within CERN can get involved! Although aimed at the summer students, technical students, openlab students and other young summer visitors, the event is open to people of all ages at CERN with a passion for web-based science outreach and education and who have a weekend to spare. Successful teams need a wide range of skills, from writing and design to physics and engineering. You can either propose your own project, or join others' projects that interest you. Check the list of past projects. Not only students but mentors are needed - see: Webfest mentors.

So come along for the weekend and create, innovate and educate about science on the web. 

Kick-off!

Project ideas will be presented at a kick-off event on Friday 1 August, from 4pm to 6pm in the Main Auditorium. Teams will self-assemble around the most exciting pitches. Anyone who is participating can pitch a project; pitches will be presented in a short set time to give every participant the chance to present his or her ideas. However, participants are encouraged to submit their project ideas beforehand to the Webfest site for the best chance to form a well-defined team. The kick-off event will also introduce a range of tools for modifying the web, creating online education and contributing to online science.

Will there be prizes?

A Grand Prize will be awarded for the best project: a free trip to the Mozilla Festival in London from 24 to 26 October, courtesy of the Mozilla Foundation. Other goodies will be distributed to all participants.

Where will we work on our ideas?

Teams will work on their Webfest project primarily in CERN's Restaurant 1. As the location is an open-space environment, there will be plenty of opportunity for interaction between participants and various technical experts taking part in the event. The EU Citizen Cyberlab project is supporting meal tickets for participants.

How will the event end?

The event will wrap up on Sunday 4 August at 4pm with a CERN judging panel reviewing the results and awarding the Grand Prize.

Many thanks to our sponsors...

The event is sponsored by the Mozilla Foundation and the EU Citizen Cyberlab project, and organized by the Citizen Cyberscience Centre.

This article first appeared in ALICE Matters, the fortnightly newsletter of the ALICE experiment.

The new ALICE Run Control Centre was inaugurated on the occasion of the collaboration dinner organized at Point 2 during the recent ALICE week. Eight months of restructuring works have reshaped the internal space arrangement of the working areas and fully refurbished all the services such as air conditioning and networking. Almost one hundred collaborators participating to the ALICE week dinner had the chance to enter the ARC for the first time and to get a live experience of the new environment.

In fact the ARC is already being used by several detector groups to carry on the first standalone tests since all the ALICE online systems underwent major improvements in terms of hardware and software requiring now a very intense phase of integration and commissioning. At the same time the ARC was recently used to manage one of the LHC dry runs, in which the machine activity is simulated in order to verify that all the interface systems with the experiment do respond correctly.

I was personally very happy that our collaborators who signed up for the ALICE dinner could experience the ARC already in an operational phase in addition to appreciating the new ergonomic and neat style. I was also very happy that all the celebration preparation was somewhat kept hidden from me and during a short toast I was "given" as a gift a nice wall handler to hold the beam line technical drawings and that a very stylish and colourful banner with the "Alice Run Control Center" stamp on it appeared from nowhere.

The CMS Physics Analysis Toolkit (PAT) tutorial, the fifteenth edition of which ran from 30 June to 5 July, has come a long way. Started January 2009, these tutorials have trained around 500 CMS physicists to use CMSSW, the CMS software framework for physics analyses.

The week-long programme includes lectures and hands-on sessions conducted by a team of 8-12 volunteer tutors. The team of volunteers is motivated by their desire to share their knowledge and to learn more in the process. Almost all the recent tutors were students in previous PAT tutorials and some of them have even become PAT developers. Besides the hard work and dedication of the PAT team, the course has been successful thanks to careful analysis of the feedback we receive from the participants.

Read the rest of this post at Cylindrical Onion, the CMS blog.

This year CERN is celebrating 60 years of science for peace. On 29 September it will be exactly 60 years since the organization was founded and CERN is marking the occasion with a series of events, concerts and films.

Don’t miss out! Book your seats now for:

• A concert by the United Nations Orchestra on 19 September
• A screening of the film Particle Fever and a Comedy Night on 20 September
• A concert by the CERN choir at Geneva’s Victoria Hall on 30 September

Details below.

Concert by the United Nations Orchestra

19 September at 6.30pm, CERN 

Under the baton of conductor and artistic director Antoine Marguier, the United Nations Orchestra will accompany soloist Maestro Matteo Fedeli, who, under the patronage of the Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations, will perform on a Stradivarius violin. The programme for the concert comprises:

• Jacques Offenbach, Orpheus in the Underworld Overture
• Franz von Suppé, Poet and Peasant Overture
• Camille Saint-Saëns, Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso for solo violin and orchestra
• Georges Bizet, Carmen Suite No. 1 
• Franz Lehár, Gold and Silver Waltz
• Gioachino Rossini, William Tell Overture

Doors open at 6pm. 
The concert will take place in a marquee behind the Globe of Science and Innovation, CERN.



More information or book your seats


Screening of Particle Fever followed by Comedy Night  

20 September at 7pm, CERN

The film Particle Fever follows six brilliant scientists during the launch of the Large Hadron Collider, which marked the start-up of the biggest and most expensive experiment in the history of the planet, pushing the boundaries of human innovation. The film will be followed by a panel discussion with director Mark Levinson, Academy Award-winning editor Walter Murch and some of the physicists featured in the film. The audience will have the chance to put questions to the panel. After the panel discussion, join us for a drink and the opportunity to watch some CERN scientists become amateur comedians for one night only! From the quirks of quarks to cultural conundrums, you’ll hear all about the lighter side of life in cutting-edge science.

Doors open at 6pm, film and panel 7– 9.30pm, comedy 10 – 11pm. The show will take place in a marquee behind the Globe of Science and Innovation, CERN

.

More information or book your tickets.

Concert by the CERN Choir

In collaboration with the Geneva Chamber Orchestra and the Zürcher Sing-Akademie

30 September at 8pm, Victoria Hall, Geneva

The exceptional work chosen for this concert, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, is one which, through its monumental status, its brilliance, its innovation, its originality and its energy, symbolises CERN’s scientific discoveries, reflects the genius of its creator and represents the highest creative ambitions.  

Performances of this work are rare enough to make each occasion a major event, and those by amateur ensembles are even rarer. The performance on 30 September 2014 will benefit from the support of a professional choir, the Zürcher Sing-Akademie, along with the Geneva Chamber Orchestra and four exceptional soloists.    



More information or book your tickets.

Guest post forCylindrical Onionby Charlotte Jones, high-school student from Campion School, UK

Last week, I was lucky enough to spend an amazing week on work experience with Dave Barney of CMS, doing lots of real work including in the underground caverns of the detector!

My first experience when I arrived at CERN on Monday morning was to receive an official access card, which in comparison to my later experiences seems quite small; but seeing my photo next to the CERN symbol was definitely an exciting start. After this, I underwent several online training courses that were fairly rigorous, in order to gain access to underground areas. As part of my safety training I attended a practical course on using a self-rescue mask, which provides emergency oxygen in the event of gas leaks or oxygen deficiency in the underground working areas. It was actually a very fun course as, after we had a talk about how to put on the mask, we had to demonstrate our proficiency by putting it on under realistic conditions! In groups we entered a mock tunnel and, armed with our self-rescue masks, we set off pretending to work; however suddenly there was a gas leak and a cloud rose up. So we ran from the immediate danger and then had 40 seconds to correctly put on our masks. It was fairly intense, but a very good experience to have.

Read the rest of this post on the CMS blog, Cylindrical Onion

Next week, on Tuesday 19 August, the CERN openlab Summer Students 2014 will present their work at a dedicated public Lighting Talk session.

In a 5-minute presentation, each CERN openlab Summer Student will introduce the audience to their project, explain the technical challenges they have faced and describe the results of what they have been working on for the past few weeks.

It will be a great opportunity for the students to showcase the progress they have made so far and for the audience of people from the IT and other CERN departments to be informed about various Information Technology projects, the solutions that the students have come up with and the potential future challenges they have identified.

This year, the CERN openlab Summer Student programme hosts 23 students from 17 different nationalities for 9 weeks. 

Undergraduate and graduate students in Computer Science and Physics have come from all over the world for a summer internship at CERN working on specialized advanced computing projects with applications in High Energy Physics.

As part of the CERN openlab Summer Student Programme the students have been also invited to attend a series of lectures given by IT experts on advanced CERN-related topics and had the opportunity to visit the CERN facilities and experiments as well as other research laboratories and companies such as ESRF, ILL, ETH, Google and OpenSystems.

CERN openlab is a unique public-private partnership between CERN and leading ICT companies that has been created more than 10 years ago to tackle the LHC computing, data and infrastructure challenges. Its mission is to accelerate the development of cutting-edge solutions to be used by the worldwide LHC community.

More information about the event

Registration is now open for the International School of Trigger and Data Acquisition (ISOTDAQ), which will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 28 January to 5 February 2015. The deadline for registration is 15 October 2014.

The ISOTDAQ 2015 is the sixth of a series of International Schools dedicated to introduce MSc and PhD students and Posdocs to the "arts and crafts" of triggering and acquiring data for physics experiments.

The main aim of the school is to provide an overview of the basic instruments and methodologies used in high energy physics, spanning from small experiences in lab to the very large LHC experiments, spotting the main building blocks as well as the different choices and architectures at different levels of complexity. About half of the school time will be dedicated to laboratory exercises where the students are exposed to most of the techniques described in the lectures.

Preliminary material and exercises about the basics of linux and of C language - which are needed for the labs - will be distributed to the students before the course. This material will be returned before the school and will be discussed during the first day.

The school will be held in English and will have a maximum of 52 students. Students will be selected according to their CV and a recommendation letter from one of their advisor. Students from all over the world are encouraged to apply following these instructions.

Though the school (lectures and labs) is completely financed by the supporting institutions, a fee of 600 euros is required to cover accommodation and lunches for all the students. Limited financial support is available for selected students.

Find out more:

ISOTDAQ 2015

On Friday 26 September 2014, CERN will be celebrating European Researchers' Night at three venues in Geneva and St. Genis-Pouilly. Inspired by Andy Warhol, this year's theme is “Pop science is for everyone”.

Every year, on the last Friday of September, the European Researchers’ Night takes place in about 300 cities all over Europe, with funding from the EU, to promote research and highlight researchers in engaging and fun ways for the general public.

Andy Warhol said, “Pop art is for everyone”. This year, “Pop science is for everyone” is the motto of the Researchers’ Night event organised by CERN and its partners*. The night will offer everyone the opportunity to learn about the latest discoveries in physics and cosmology through poetry, theatre and music. This will be in addition to the event's traditional activities for the general public.

To attract new audiences, the event will be held at three locations outside CERN: at FNAC Rive and Théâtre de la Madeleine in Geneva, and at Théâtre du Bordeau in St. Genis-Pouilly. Here are some of the highlights of the very rich programme:

Poetry

Six European poets, selected by the World Academy of Poetry, visited CERN to meet physicists and to be inspired by the laboratory. Their poems will be unveiled at FNAC at 6 p.m. in the presence of Hubert Reeves and the poets themselves.

Theatre

Through “Origins”, a multi-arts theatre show created by Marie-Odile Monchicourt and Michel Spiro staged at the Théâtre du Bordeau in St Genis at 7 p.m., the audience will experience the quantum vacuum and debate with the artists and scientists involved, among them Hubert Reeves, Etienne Klein and Michel Spiro.

Science Cafés

FNAC’s Urban Café will be the stage for a series of Science Cafés, where CERN scientists will entertain the audience with stories of the particles that are pushing the frontiers of knowledge, as well as medicine, music and the arts. The final café to close the night, entitled “Big Bang, Higgs, Les exoplanètes…  et moi ?” will be at the Théâtre de la Madeleinein Geneva at 10 p.m. and will star Hubert Reeves, Etienne Klein, Michel Mayor and Fabiola Gianotti.

Ask a Researcher

CERN’s researchers will “occupy” two floors of FNAC Rive. All the screens in the shop will feature videos and animations about the discovery of the Higgs boson, the LHC, the spin-offs of particle physics and much more!

Activities for kids, quizzes, games, music based on LHC data, a photo exhibit devoted to “collisions” and liquid nitrogen marshmallows will complete the programme of this very special night!

*POPSCIENCE Partners: Subway edizioni, the Origins Association, The World Academy of Poetry, the University of Geneva, FNAC and the Mairie de St Genis-Pouilly.

For more information and updates on the programme visit: www.pop-science.eu.

Volunteers for POPSCIENCE wanted

The POPSCIENCE organisers at CERN are recruiting volunteers for the “Ask a Researcher” event or as support staff for the other activities. Shifts start at 4 p.m. and finish at 10 p.m. on Friday September 26. A good level of spoken French would be appreciated. In return: POP T-shirts, food and drinks, and a lot of fun!

Register at: http://cern.ch/popscience.

Contact: pop.science@cern.ch.

The CERN Diversity Programme is hosting its 4^th edition of the interactive Diversity in Action workshop, designed to creatively explore the meaning and importance of diversity at CERN, in support of the organization’s value of “appreciating differences, fostering equality and promoting collaboration”. Using participative multimedia methods this innovative workshop will provide participants with insights into diversity, help them to develop greater sensitivity to differences, explore ways to recognize and overcome biases and thereby strengthen our tradition of inclusiveness at CERN. This half-day event is tailor-made for CERN and will be held in English and French.

Alan Richter, president of QED Consulting, a New York based Consulting Company will be facilitating the workshop. He has consulted to leading organizations worldwide for many years in multiple capacities, primarily in the areas of leadership, values, culture and change. In collaboration with Geneviève Guinot, the CERN diversity programme leader, he will give an insight into diversity, help develop greater sensitivity to differences and acquire new tools to recognise and overcome unconscious biases.

“For me it was a great opportunity to talk about diversity issues with other people at CERN who I would have never met otherwise," says Alex Brown, who participated in the 3rd edition of the workshop earlier this year. "The discussions I was involved in inspired connections that are still active, five months later."

Everyone working on the CERN site is welcome to participate. It will be held Thursday 18 September 2014 from 8.30am to 12.30pm in the Business Center Technoparc — Saint-Genis-Pouilly. Places are limited so please sign up here.

A special symposium will take place this afternoon in CERN’s main auditorium to highlight the great adventure of the Large Electron-Positron (LEP) collider and to celebrate the 90th birthday of the former CERN Director-General, Herwig Schopper. 

The story of LEP started at the beginning of the 1980s. The construction of the huge collider, which was to be the largest in the world, and of its four experiments was approved in 1981. A few months earlier, Herwig Schopper became CERN’s Director-General and he put all his efforts into winning approval for the big machine, and then carrying out the project. From 1983 to 1988, the most formidable civil engineering enterprise in the history of CERN took place with the construction of the 27-km tunnel that now houses the LHC. Meanwhile, physics collaborations of unprecedented size were put in place to develop four huge particle detectors. Many technical challenges had to be overcome to build the collider and its experiments. The physics results obtained during the first phase of LEP, between 1989 and 1994, helped to establish the Standard Model as the theory for particle physics and enabled predictions to be made for new physics.

At the symposium, former CERN director Horst Wenninger will talk about the support for the LEP machine and describe CERN’s technical involvement with the collaborations of the four LEP experiments during the collider’s construction period. He will aslo describe the preparations for the LEP energy upgrade and for the LHC during the firs phase of LEP operation (LEP I). 

Former theory division leader, John Ellis, who participated in the pioneering studies of possible physics with LEP, the LHC and CLIC, will talk about the ascent of the Standard Model during the LEP period.

Finally, Herwig Schopper will cover the human aspects of the story, explaining the conditions through which the success of LEP was achieved and the spirit created at CERN to enable such a success.

The symposium will take place at CERN main auditorium, between 3.30pm and 6.30pm.

You can follow it by webcast at: www.cern.ch/webcast.

This is an eventful week. Read this summary and don’t miss these unique events!

17.09: the  « 60 years of Peace» webcast will be available in the original language only.

19.09: CERN People are cordially invited to attend the symposium that will be held in the marquee behind the Globe from 3pm to 5pm.

19.09: The United Nation Orchestra concert is sold out. However, you can still follow it live on http://www.cern.ch/webcast.

20.09: Particle Fever film screening and Commedy Night  show: the event is sold out but the discussion that will take place between 8.45pm and 9.30pm will be available on webcast.

26.09: From Physics to daily life colloquium in the Main Auditorium :  the webcast in English and French will be available as from 9am.

29.09: Official ceremony to celebrate CERN’s 60th Anniversary : the ceremony is by invitation only, the live webcast is available at http://www.cern.ch/webcast. Live transmission will be available in the IT auditorium (31-3-004), the Council Chamber (503-1-001), the Main Auditorium on the Meyrin site (500-1-001) and the Main Auditorium on the Prévessin site (864 – 1-D02 ) from 1.30pm onwards.

This joint opinion piece was written by Agnieszka Zalewska, President of CERN Council, and Rolf Heuer, CERN Director-General.

It was on 7 and 8 October 1954 that the first meeting of the CERN Council took place, opened by Frenchman Robert Valeur, retiring Chairman of the interim Council that had overseen the establishment of CERN. On the day we celebrate that first meting with a special Council Symposium, it’s interesting to look back at the meeting’s minutes. 

Penned in the dry official language that is the hallmark of such documents, the momentous nature of what had been achieved nevertheless shines through. “The retiring Chairman stressed the importance of the creation of the Organization which would be the first scientific organization of its kind in the world,” Valeur was reported as saying, before going on to introduce such luminaries as Swiss writer and federalist, Denis de Rougemont, and American Nobel Prize winner, Isidor Rabi, who had both played instrumental roles in the creation of CERN. CERN pioneer Pierre Auger would only be present the following day, reported Valeur, while Louis de Broglie, whose 1949 submission to the European Cultural Conference started it all, was unable to attend.

In words that set the tone for transatlantic relations in particle physics, Rabi “stressed the great interest of American scientists in the work of the Laboratory and offered, on their behalf, the most cordial and complete cooperation. This, he hoped, would lead to a fair competition between Europe and America for the benefit of science”. Opening formalities aside, the meeting very rapidly got down to business, with elections of officials, financial and staffing matters, and detailed discussions about the suitability of the local geology for the construction of the proton synchrotron.

What made the origins of CERN so remarkable, and continues to make CERN remarkable today, is the extraordinary resonance between visionary scientists, diplomats and government representatives, all recognising science as a vehicle for peace. The names cited in the minutes of the first Council meeting include scientists and non-scientists. Today’s Council continues in that tradition, being composed of representatives of our Member States’ governments and scientific communities. It is this that makes our governance model so robust, our scientific record so proud, and it is what makes that first meeting of the Council so worthy of celebration today as we approach the International Day of Peace this weekend.

Sixty years after CERN’s creation, there is still much conflict and intolerance in the world. In such a climate, institutions like CERN, islands of peace and stability, are more necessary than ever. New ones, such as SESAME, should be encouraged, while those that exist should be nurtured. This is the message that we hope endures from CERN’s 60th anniversary year.

In the summer, when offices are empty and the library is full of new faces, it may seem like a perfect opportunity to steal IT equipment. However, as we know, stealing never pays and thieves always get caught. Just like the person who stole several bikes parked in front of Reception…

 As we have said many times: security affects us all. It would seem that the crafty little devil who stole four computers from the library (three privately owned and one belonging to CERN) in July hadn’t read our article. This individual naïvely thought that it would be possible to commit the thefts, sell his ill-gotten gains on the CERN Market and still get away with it.

But he was wrong, as the CERN security service and the IT security service were able to identify the guilty party within just a few days.  “The computers had been stolen over a period of four days but it was obvious to us that the same person was responsible,” explains Didier Constant, Head of the Security Service. “Thanks to the IT security service, we could see that the stolen computers had been connected to the CERN network after they were taken and that they had been put up for sale on the CERN Market.”

The thief’s strategic error was blatantly obvious in this case. However, even when the intentions are clear, it is not always so easy to find proof, especially if the thief tries to defend himself with explanations and alibis like a professional criminal. “The Geneva police helped us a lot,” says Didier Constant. “The person eventually admitted to three of the four thefts. He had probably sold the fourth computer outside CERN.”

Fortunately, the security service is never on holiday: also in July, another person thought he could come to CERN on the tram, help himself to a bike parked near Reception and use it to get away, repeating this process several times. “In total, over three weeks, this person stole about 10 bikes,” explains Didier Constant. “In this case we were able to identify the guilty party from our security cameras and the police had a criminal record for him.”

So there you have two very interesting stories. In both cases, it was thanks to tickets created on the CERN Portal that these crimes could be dealt with by experts in the services concerned and by the police. If you see unusual behaviour or if you are the victim of theft, don’t hesitate to report it.

Out of 292 proposals for CERN's first ever "Beamline for Schools" contest, two teams of high-school students – Odysseus' Comrades from Varvakios Pilot School in Athens, Greece and Dominicuscollege from Dominicus College in Nijmegen in the Netherlands – were selected to spend 10 days conducting their proposed experiments at the fully equipped T9 beamline on CERN's Meyrin site. Dedicated CERN staff and users from across the departments have put in a huge effort to ensure the success of the project.

It's finally beam time. After months of organisation, coding, engineering and even painting the experimental area, the T9 beamline is ready to deliver protons to experiments devised and built by high-school students. “They are here to collect data and experience the life of a scientist. I don't want their time here to feel like a planned VIP visit," said Christoph Rembser, the Beamline for Schools project coordinator. “We will adapt to changes as they come up just as experimental physicists do on shift and, if there is downtime, the students will have a chance to visit some CERN installations such as CMS and ATLAS.”

The students' first full day at CERN was devoted to safety awareness and training. The teams learnt to recognise hazard signs and safety protocols at CERN, and members of the HSE Unit, the Cryogenics Group and the Fire Brigade gave presentations about staying safe at CERN.

Now it's over to the beamline. For veteran beams physicist Lau Gatignon, who is instructing the students in basic beam physics, the project is a welcome novelty. “Beams have been keeping me busy at CERN for 35 years, but this is the first time I’ll be working on a beamline with a bunch of 16- and 17-year-olds," he says. "The students are very excited; it’s great to see!”

The two teams of students come from Greece and the Netherlands. The first one, Odysseus’ Comrades, a team of 12, will look at the decay of charged pions to investigate the weak force. "We wanted something simple but understandable that would be connected to the history of CERN," says team member Konstantinos Papathanasiou (17). "We had to learn a lot of new things, but now we understand the necessary physics." The Dutch Dominicuscollege, a team of five, have grown their own crystals to make a calorimeter and test it with the beam at CERN. The team came up with the idea after two students attended a course in crystallography at Radboud University in Nijmegen. “We learnt about X-ray crystallography and crystal structure," says Lisa Biesot (17). "We thought that using crystals for the experiment was a great idea,” says Olaf Leenders (17). Their calorimeter will also be used as a component in the pion-decay experiment, making the beamline project a truly international and interdisciplinary experiment, like all typical experiments at CERN.

In order for the two teams to run their research projects, a lot of CERN scientists have worked to prepare the T9 beamline and have offered guidance during the experimental phase at CERN. Detector physicists Cenk Yildiz and Saime Gurbuz are among those scientists: they have spent weeks writing data-acquisition software and have been training the students on site in the specifics of data acquisition and of taking shifts. "We are using terminal commands and the Linux system, for example, which may be unfamiliar to the students," says Gurbuz. "But they are very hard-working! They have studied their lessons; when I ask them questions they answer straight away!"

"The experiments these young students have designed and run are challenging," concludes Rembser. "I will encourage them to write a paper at the end for the real science experience, but we will have to see how it goes!"

What do you get when you mix students from around the world with detector technologies developed at CERN and ask them to solve societal problems? Welcome to the Challenge-Based Innovation course.

Students at CERN are no surprise; the Laboratory welcomes hundreds each year. But these 45 students, travelling from Spain, Finland, Norway, Italy and even Australia, are studying design, engineering, business and more. With their mix of backgrounds, they have come to CERN this week to view detector technologies in a very different way.

They are here to follow the Challenge-Based Innovation (CBI) course, a Masters-level student programme developed by CERN in collaboration with a number of universities worldwide. They will be grouped into six teams and shown a range of detector technologies in collaboration with coaches and inspiration partners. In just six months, they will seek to develop prototypes in a number of fields ranging from aiding the blind and the elderly to improving food security (see below).

“The aim is to develop human-centred solutions where the needs of the people become the guidelines for designing the various prototypes,” explains Tuuli Utriainen, CBI course coordinator at CERN. “After an initial two weeks at CERN, the students will return to their respective countries to continue working on the concepts, before coming back to CERN early next year to present their results.”  

The course follows on from a pilot CBI course that began in 2013, in which students developed prototypes to aid meeting communications and to improve the learning experiences of autistic children.

“We learnt a lot from the initial pilot course,” explains Joona Kurikka, a PhD student from the Aalto University in Finland who is working with Tuuli to coordinate the course. “A new feature that we have implemented for this year is a collaborative teaching platform to allow the participating institutes to exchange not only ideas but also teaching methods.”

“The ideas will certainly evolve over time, and the final prototypes could be surprising and different from what we expect when we propose these challenges now,” continues Tuuli. “We can’t wait to see the results in February 2015!”

The challenges

The six student teams will each be given one of the challenges below as a starting point for its six-month project.

1. How could blind people benefit from sensor technology?
2. How could we enable natural interaction in telepresence solutions?
3. How could sensor technology aid facility management or the interaction with spaces?
4. How could food security benefit from cryogenics or other technologies such as insulation?
5. How could an ageing population benefit from exoskeleton designs?
6. How could wearable sensors increase our understanding of human interactions?

The CBI course is one of the activities carried out by the Development and Innovation Unit led by Marzio Nessi and Markus Nordberg in the DG Unit. As CBI forms part of the students’ Masters curriculum, the participating universities provide their funding for the students. As the course continues to develop, the organisers are working to build partnerships with additional Member and non-Member State universities.

If you are interested to know more about CBI or would like to participate or comment on the topics, please contact tuuli.utriainen@cern.ch.

Created by filmmaker Liz Mermin, a new YouTube series puts the spotlight on CERN people. This set of short films offers new insight into the daily lives of CERN physicists.

The new online video series, CERN people, takes you behind the headlines of some of the biggest physics breakthroughs of our time, capturing the invention and discovery in the lives of CERN’s scientists. “CERN offered a fascinating blend of people from so many different backgrounds combined with exciting and groundbreaking physics,” says filmmaker Liz Mermin. “So, my aim was to show the real-life characters – the ones that stay up all night analysing data and tweaking the code for the experiments – and communicate their passion for particle physics.”

The films give a first-hand experience of what it’s like day-to-day at CERN by showing the ups and downs of working at the frontier of modern science. For the participants, it was an excellent opportunity to talk about their research: “I enjoyed talking about my work on the CMS Trigger in non-technical terms,” says Tulika Bose, who works on the CMS project at CERN. “This project was a good opportunity to document a particularly volatile time with not only the disappointing results in my own work, but also the excitement of the discovery of the Higgs Boson.”

“The videos really give an accurate view of what it’s like being at CERN,” adds Sam Harper, also from the CMS experiment.

“Being in this long-term project helped me to step back and realise that things don’t change as much as we think, all while changing completely,” commented Zachary Marshall, from the ATLAS experiment, for whom the best part was “getting messages from friends and family who had seen the videos”.

For Liz, the main challenge was overcoming the lack of visual aspects of the physics itself and trying to balance the amount of information given to the audience: enough to arouse interest and give a sense of the work being done, but not so much that the science becomes overwhelming. The result is a series of short films that delve into the work done here at CERN with real-life characters that reflect on their own achievements with humour and humility. This series is sponsored by the Science and Technologies Facilities Council and the Irish Film Board.

So don’t miss out! The whole series is now available on this YouTube Intelligent Channel.

In the run up to 29 September, the hashtag #MyCERN60 gave CERN people and CERN’s followers on social media the chance to wish CERN a happy 60th birthday. Here are some of the highlights.

When tasked with wishing the European Laboratory for Particle Physics a happy 60th birthday, what would you do? Would you draw a picture? Bake a cake? #MyCERN60 on Twitter (EN, FR), Facebook, Google+ and social.cern.ch, gave people the opportunity to send a personal birthday greeting to the Organization. The results were heart-warming. Below is a selection of some of the messages received:

Many other organisations also took the opportunity to wish CERN a happy birthday, from IOP Publishing to Victoria Gallery to APS Physics. Weltmaschine even made a video of German-speaking researchers and personnel wishing CERN “Glückwünsche”. Birthday wishes came from as far afield as Indonesia and Brazil, but also from many CERN people:

Thank you to everyone who sent in their birthday messages!